


A Young Man's Game

by PandaFlower



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, M/M, Madara is the LEAST ornamental hermit imaginable, a DISTINCT lack of fucks, also phenomenal cosmic power, crazy hermits fixing things through lack of fucks, featuring Uchiha Madara: Limited Edition Cave Mummy, worldbuilding strictly for scratching my id
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaFlower/pseuds/PandaFlower
Summary: War is a young man's game, but it is the old that start it, and now one old man takes it upon himself to fix it the right way.Goddamn, things were so much easier when he was living on cave mushrooms.
Relationships: Uchiha Izuna & Uchiha Madara, relationships to be added as relevent
Comments: 101
Kudos: 422





	1. One (1) Ornamental Hermit, Seeking Employment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notbug (KageKashu)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KageKashu/gifts).



Madara has barely shaken off the burn of his eyes changing when a vision slams like a hammer blow between them with a wheeze and a tumble, collapsing back onto his mock throne as his world view rocks on its foundations. So many— _lies, all lies, how dare—_ so much death and for _what?_ _What was it all worth?_

A dream that lies in the ashes of what could be if only. If only.

Zetsu — _traitor, monster, harbinger_ — makes a facsimile of an intrigued noise. “Is the sensory input that different?”

It takes but a thought to compress the slimy bastard into a sphere and boot him through the mountain into the nearest magma pool. Ah, instant peace. Figuratively and literally, heh.

That just left…

Madara eyeballed the demonic statue. He could _probably_ also stick it in a magma pool and call it a day. But. There is a much more satisfying idea his future self suggested. More importantly, it promises to be far pettier in execution and Madara likes that.

He tilts his head back with a tired exhale, wrinkled hands clenched on the armrests, grabs hold of the chakra flowing into him from the statue and _yanks._ He wrestles from its malevolence a star’s worth of chakra and funnels it all to the rinnegan, lines of fire arching through his skull from the strain of containing so much chakra in a human vessel.

He only pauses long enough to grab his cane.

A world awaits that lies now in new dreams. Only this time—

This one will come true.

* * *

Madara is in the middle of a particularly frustrating meeting when a guard cautiously interrupts to inform him there’s a strange old man at the gates claiming to be kin. Which is, just. Perfect. What’s one more infuriating old person to ruin his day? Just the same, he could use a break from his regularly scheduled old people so he makes a show of graciously backing out without seeming too eager to go take care of that.

He swings through the gates to demand where the hell this old man got off sneaking past their patrols — because that part didn’t escape him in the _least_ — only to come face to face with a wizened mirror of _himself_ and almost choked on his own tongue.

Well then. Looks like there was something to the old man’s claims after all.

“Are you fools going to make these old bones stand out here all day?” The old man snaps at him with a disconcertingly familiar waspish temper. “Some welcome you lot are! One would almost think you didn’t recognize your own kin anymore. What, did you all overuse your damn sharingan and go blind?”

“Peace, Elder, we beg your patience.” now on the back foot, Madara scrambled not to act like the sheepish boy the scolding made him feel like. Which just made him vexed from burgeoning embarrassment he even felt like that at all; the elders council gave him enough flack about his youth without the snide comments about his temper. “You’ve been gone a long time. Surely, you remember there are protocols for long absences.”

 _We have no idea if you are who you say you are,_ he didn’t say.

The old man sniffed imperiously, leaning forward and activating a sharingan. And, okay, that was pretty good proof as far as relation went. Madara relaxed a smidgeon, and then the old man’s eyes went lavender and ringed and suddenly they were all floating holy fuck— 

Madara swallowed, toes touching the ground again, in mild shock as the old man huffed and hobbled through the crowd, grumbling about needing some warm tea for these old bones.

“Wait, Elder—!” Madara caught up to him easily, having to catch himself before he accidentally overtook him. “Who—?”

“It’s Madara,” the old man cut him off.

“Um, what?” Madara blinked, did the old man mean him?

“My _name,_ ” the old man, his namesake apparently, said testily. “I already know it’s yours too. Heard you were making a name for yourself, got curious.”

“I... see,” Madara said, straining for calm with gritted teeth. “I hope you are not disappointed—”

“Oh, spare me the platitudes.” Madara the Elder rolled his eyes. “I didn’t come here for them. Speaking of, is there an opening on your elders council? Never mind, one will open for me.”

“Awful certain of yourself, aren’t you?” Madara finally snapped, stepping in front of the elder, fists propped on his hips. “You haven’t even been here two minutes, you think they’ll just give you a position? Think again!”

“I’d like to see them stop me,” the elder sniffed. “I didn’t spend decades of my retirement acquiring legendary sage powers for _nothing,_ after all.” And, true. That wasn’t a claim easily disputed.

Oh hell, could _Madara_ dispute any claim the old man made even if he didn’t successfully wedge himself on the council? A rinnegan in Uchiha hands; if the old man was in favor of the war—! Before the sick-hot distress can finish rising a quick poke to the forehead interrupts it, and Madara recoils, indignant.

“Quit your fretting, there are more important things,” the elder chides. “I’m here for _you,_ you young idiot. Now, are you going to get me tea or am I going to have to take this,” he waves the cane, “to you knees? I’ve still got quite the mean swing in me.”

Madara is having a bit of difficulty. “I. Right this way, Elder.” Numbly, Madara directed him to the main house, being ostensibly an honored guest who’d won the clan esteem, or soon would once word got out. 

In what was either a supremely boneheaded move or an act of self-defense, Madara completely blanked on the elders council still fuming impatiently in his sitting room right up until Izuna showed up halfway through offering his old namesake some snacks for his tea. Shit. Izuna is also fuming from being left to entertain them by himself. Double shit.

“Who’s this?” Izuna asked without preamble. What he meant was, _what’s so important about him you left me to the vultures?_

“This is... Elder Madara, a sage.” Oh, whatever happens after this, Madara was going to _treasure_ the gobsmacked look on Izuna’s face forever. “He’s just returned from his spiritual retreat to lend his wisdom to the clan.”

Said sage was currently face deep in a cup of tea and huddled under a blanket, looking precisely nothing like a venerable sage and everything like a frail, old man. Izuna made a spectacularly dubious face that said exactly what he was thinking, loud and clear. Madara tried to convey the seriousness of the situation back with just his eyes. 

It didn’t work.

“ _Anyway,_ the elders are wondering when you’ll be back to attend them,” Izuna said pointedly, dismissing the old man in favor of getting back to the point of tracking down his brother.

The tea cup was set down with an ominous clink.

“Oh, they’re already here?” Madara the Elder asked, heaving himself to his feet with a creak and a wobble of his cane. “Perfect. I need a word with them. They’re about to make an opening for me.”

Faint alarm stole over Izuna’s face. “You were expected?”

“Absolutely not,” the old man declared. “That’s boring. And gives them a chance to fortify themselves. Oh no, they won’t see me coming. They won’t see me at all…”

Oh gods, he’s cackling. Madara despairs. At least he’s also slow enough for them to quickly catch up and, hopefully, dissuade him from interrupting a meeting. After last season’s absolutely vicious bout of flu that wiped out the old council, the current council was mostly comprised of Tajima’s retired agemates, and they were, to a one, absolutely vicious and intractable to deal with without scrupulous attention to niceties. Honestly, it made Madara want to scream at them on a daily basis if only if it wouldn’t make them _worse._ He does not need the old man stirring them up!

“Maybe we should get you settled in first?” Madara tries. “You’ve had a long journey, wouldn’t you like to rest awhile?” _And give me a chance to disperse the worst of them?_

“Maybe get a real meal down?” Izuna, ever his first supporter, rallies to his side. “I’m sure the compound’s changed since you’ve been gone, we can give you the grand tour!”

“I’ve done nothing but rest!” Madara the Elder immediately groused, eyeing them unhappily from where they’ve hemmed him in. “Out of my way, I’ve got things to do and not a lot of time to do them in!” And then his eyes went lavender and all three were floating down the hallway, and damn the old man was fast when he wasn’t walking.

Izuna flailed, whispering harshly, “You didn’t tell me he had the _rinnegan!_ ”

“I said he was a sage! It was inferred!” Madara shot back.

“Pipe down and watch, children,” the old man cut in. “This is how you make grown men cry.”

He touched down and the doors flew open without being touched, a fairly respectable bit of drama Madara would appreciate under different circumstances.

“What’s this, what’s this?” Madara the Elder demanded. “Good dishes, expensive tea, snacks at every elbow; is this a meeting about the future of the clan or a teahouse?”

Spluttering. Madara had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud. Talk about saying what everyone (reasonable) was already thinking. Izuna himself was clinging to the wall, hiding his face, shoulder’s trembling.

“Who do you think you are to speak to us this way?” Elder Kitsuchi demanded. “This is a classified meeting, not for the likes of just anyone to wander in as they please!”

“Then what are you doing here?” Madara the Elder sniffed. Kitsuchi was shocked silent at the audacity. No one had spoken like that to him since, well, ever that Madara knew. Certainly not since he’d gained favor as one of his father’s warmongering yes-men.

“Actually,” the old man continued, “what are _you_ doing here?” He pointed to a man still black of hair; Elder Kazuichi. “You’re what, forty? The hell are you doing calling yourself an elder? At your age I was just retiring from fieldwork and pursuing higher chakric arts. What, you think just because you’ve left the field you can let yourself go? And don’t tell me you haven’t, I can _see_ your coils atrophying. Lazy!”

Elder Matsu rose, furious, and addressed Madara over the old man’s shoulder. “What is he doing in here, Madara?”

“I just asked that!” Madara the Elder snapped, still pointing. “I’m pretty sure being deluded ought to disqualify you from a position of power.”

Never mind, Madara was having the _best day ever._ He officially had a new favorite relative. This was _amazing._ He’s never seen the current elders council so— so bamboozled!

“In fact, I don’t even know why I’m asking you people,” the old man turned his nose up imperiously. “You’ve clearly been feeding his delusions. You can go.” He waved at ‘Elder’ Kazuichi.

Kazuichi activated his sharingan.

Cool as summer fruit, Madara the Elder batted an eye and Kazuichi floated up, up, and out the window. Madara didn’t hear a thump. The rest of the council floated up in various states of alarm as well, and the old man settled himself on a cushion in the center, audacious as you pleased, settling the rest daintily around him. 

All was stunned quiet. 

Madara the Elder poked at the teapot, nodding approvingly at the smell.

“ _What the hell!?_ ” Elder Kitsuchi snarled, surging to his feet with a betraying wobble. “How dare you— you— who even are you?!”

The old man looks to Madara as if saying, _aren’t you going to introduce me, young man?_

Madara cleared his throat to get the council’s attention. “Honored members of the council, may I introduce Uchiha Madara, who’s recently returned from a spiritual retreat to lend his wisdom to the clan? As you can see, he’s accomplished the ultimate goal of achieving the highest level of our vaunted dojutsu; the rinnegan, the eyes of the Sage of Six Paths himself.”

The elders, to a one, look like they’ve had a peeled lemon shoved down their throats.

“So,” Madara the Elder said, cheerily, “what was the agenda today?”

“Uh,” Madara looked to Izuna. Truth be told he zoned out the last ten minutes of the meeting.

“Border patrols,” Izuna choked out.

The old man’s wrinkled brow wrinkled still further. “What the shit, that doesn’t need a council meeting. Relevant reports go to clan head, clan head formulates response to them. Done. Unless there was something concerning?”

Madara shook his head.

“Okay then, meeting adjourned!” The old man clapped. “Now someone point me to some dinner; I’ve been living off cave mushrooms!”

Best. Day. Ever.


	2. Two (2) Brothers On The Same Page

Madara doesn’t get an inkling of precisely how much his namesake is _on his side_ until well into the next week. 

So far, it’s the best week of Madara’s life since becoming clan head, probably up there as top ten if he counted his whole life. Which might seem like a sad statement at first glance, but no. It’s just been a _really, really great week._ His elder namesake has left people in all kinds of disarray left, right, and center. No one is spared. He says the most outrageous things anyone has ever heard, with exactly zero fucks for hierarchy or propriety.

More importantly, he says outrageous things to cut through the bullshit Tajima’s regime precipitated that everyone has been conditioned to quietly put up with. It’s fantastic. Every sentiment Madara has ever nursed in privacy with only his most trusted kin, laid bare. Like a fresh breeze to air out the last of the old regime’s stink. 

More, all the ruffled feathers leave space for _Madara_ to get things done without feeling like he’s wading through syrup in the process. Why, just yesterday he had the mental strength and fortitude to deal with two particularly infuriating duties. 

_Two!_

_In the same day!_

That hasn’t happened in weeks.

But the true scope, _that_ leaves Madara breathless.

“We need to be on the same page, you and I,” his namesake greets him, rummaging through Madara’s tea cupboard without so much as a by your leave. Or an invitation inside, for that matter.

“How do you mean?” Madara asks, choosing to cut out at least ten minutes of squabbling by graciously ignoring the old man’s atrocious guest manners. It’s a fair question, he thinks, the old man _did_ just just arrive, there was no doubt a list of things to catch him up on as long as his gunbai was tall.

“I _mean_ I’m hard of hearing, not deaf,” the old man retorted. “Let’s talk about this peace thing.”

Madara goes cold.

So it’s to be this then?

How… unsurprising. Disappointing.

“We don’t need to discuss it,” he spits. “I’ve heard every counter-argument and criticism imaginable. It’s radical, and dangerous, if not outright treasonous to our ancestors’ memory. I have my mind on more sensible goals these days, with the good of the clan in mind, I assure you.”

The old man levels a singularly unimpressed look over his shoulder, shutting the cupboard door like punctuation point. “Well, I’m an ancestor and I like the idea just fine.”

Madara has to sit down.

“You agree?” Madara rasped, fighting to speak around a sudden lump in his throat. “Truly? I thought— I’d just about given up getting anyone from the clan to support it. Even Izuna doesn’t— doesn’t.”

“That’s because you’re being entirely too hasty, Mini Me,” the old man grumps. And Mini Me? Could he have picked a more mortifying nickname? “You’re asking them to run before they’ve learned to crawl.”

“You really think so?” There’s a particular knot in the table, worn black and smooth with age and touch; Madara worries at it, unwilling to look the old man in the face.

A cane thumps on the top of his head. Madara yelps and glares at the wrinkled bastard without thinking, faltering just a bit at the patient expression.

“You can’t just throw them in the deep end of peace. Okay? That’s too much too soon,” the elder said, earnest and, and kind when Madara was expecting his usual brusque exasperation. “This Hashirama boy is as new to the position as you. They don’t know him as a leader yet. You can do something there. Ease back the hostility first. Push for an armistice, then go from there. Let people _get used_ to the idea before you really get ambitious.”

This is. Everything Madara needs to hear. And he almost can’t handle it. Not just humoring, not just agreement, not just shared gushing of bright, brilliant, _aching_ what ifs, but actual constructive advice. A _direction._

And wow, that was a lot more sensible than anything that ever came up when he and Hashirama used to wonder how they could make peace. 

Practically giddy with renewed enthusiasm, Madara goes to retrieve some ink and paper, putting the kettle on to boil on his way back in a moment of forethought. The idea of roughing out an armistice is appealing as hell right now while he still has a constructive soundboard.

Honestly, taking a step back feels _so good._ Madara huffs in disbelief at himself halfway through a paragraph after correcting overeager wording for the third time; really, the degree to which he’d gotten wrapped up in an all or nothing mindset about peace is frankly _ridiculous._ Honestly. Where has his brain gone?

There’s a part of him that _wants,_ fiercely, hungrily, avariciously, for the honey-sweet promises of that old dream. But those parts seem...easier to set aside with this newfound clarity. 

Madara gets all the way through a first draft, buoyed by old hope and invigorating tea, when Izuna shuffling bleary-eyed into the kitchen brings him right back down. 

Izuna… won’t approve.

Except, that was then. 

This is now. 

And now is armistices and, and strengthening bonds with allies they already have, things Izuna would surely see the sense of. 

Madara won’t give up on his brother yet.

“Good morning,” Madara greeted. If nothing else, he wanted this discussion to start out pleasantly.

“Mornin’,” Izuna mumbles, shuffling over to poke at the kettle to see if it’s still hot. “Why are you doing paperwork at this hour?”

“Oh, I… was chasing a thought,” Madara said, resisting the urge to hide his maybe-armistice outline. _Come on, just say it outright. You can do it,_ he tried to cajole himself, but the words locked up tight in his throat, barred by the near enraged, disappointed look Izuna wore every time Madara broached the subject.

Izuna almost drowns in his morning tea before he figures out how to drink like a person again. His usual wake up routine. “Good thought?” He manages, coughing out however much liquid went down the wrong pipe.

“I hope so,” Madara said quietly.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” His namesake burst, thumping his cane on the table and startling Madara and Izuna both, Izuna fumbling tea all over himself. “We’re discussing peace! Because we both think it’s a good idea! There. That wasn’t so hard.”

Madara was scandalized. And slightly apprehensive. But mostly scandalized.

Maybe he shouldn’t have laughed so openly at his clanmates’ suffering.

Izuna’s teacup shattered in his grip.

Madara’s heart beat triple time under the heavy foreboding.

“How can you entertain such a brain-dead foolish notion?” Izuna demanded. “And you—” he rounded on the old man, “how dare you string my brother along with such fanciful ideas. It’s hard enough keeping his head on straight!”

Madara was torn between cascading anger and burning _shame._ Had he _ever_ given Izuna cause to think his brother, his clan head, would let a far off dream distract him from looking after the clan? Surely not! Before Izuna could say something truly cruel Madara reaches out to grab his hand, drawing his attention back to meet his earnest look.

“He’s exaggerating,” Madara begins, and his namesake shoots him a look that’s more pitying than disapproving. “We both agreed it’d be nice to have, but Elder Madara rightfully pointed out the way I approached it was unrealistic.”

“Oh. Good,” Izuna said, mollified. “The only way we’ll have real peace is to—”

“Ask for an armistice first,” Madara finished firmly. “And go from there.”

Izuna digs fingernails into Madara’s hand. “You can’t trust them to keep their word! The Senju are treacherous, how many times do I have to tell you this?”

“There’s no harm in trying!” Madara retorted. “Hashirama—”

“Oh yes, Hashirama, do tell me all about your precious Senju saboteur,” Izuna spat, a nasty glint in his eye.

“He’s not—” Madara forcibly stopped and took a breath. His namesake had withdrawn in his chair, the rise of a bushy gray brow expectant. “We don’t have to start with the Senju, you know.”

His namesake started at that. 

Izuna scowled, “What are you saying?”

“Look, the Senju are dealing with a new clan head just like us.” Madara pulled Izuna’s hand over the table, laying his free hand on it, voice going soft. “Maybe I can capitalize on my history with Hashirama and get them to agree to a— a cease-fire period, _something,_ get us some breathing room. Maybe they won’t agree, but there’s no harm in trying, is there? And if they don’t, then we go to the other clans and make alliances with _them_ until the Senju have no choice but to back off or be overwhelmed.”

“No harm,” Izuna echoed hollowly. “Of course, there’s harm. As soon as we let our guard down they’ll stab us in the back. Is that what you want?”

“Oi, do you think the clan is so easily snuck up on?” Madara the Elder interjected. Madara’s thankful for the reprieve. When Izuna’s dug his heels in it’s like beating his head on wall. “It’s not like we’ll just take them at their word to start with, we’ll still patrol our borders with care and avoid them outside our territory.”

“Then they’ll wait!” Izuna snarled. “They’ll wait however long it takes for us to stop guarding our throats, and then they’ll slit them.”

“Oh for—” Madara the Elder whacked Izuna upside the head with his cane. Izuna yelped, scrambling out his chair. “Have I jarred your wits back into place, or do you need another? Consider, if you will, that I have the _rinnegan,_ and if they try my patience further I can just drop a meteor on them.”

“Why not do that from the start?” Izuna asked, almost plaintive, eyeing the old man warily.

“Because throwing a meteor at them after they spit on our offers satisfies me in ways that are extremely petty and ironic, that’s why.” The old man rolled his eyes. “Now are you going to sit your ass back down and help, or do I have to pull it over my knee first?”

Izuna sat.


	3. Chapter 3

Hashirama’s over enthusiastic response comes as no surprise, but something about it makes the old man sniff in disapproval. Granted, it makes Madara want to sniff in disapproval too. Couldn’t his old friend maintain at least a smidgeon of a sense of decorum? Or at least act like he cared about having it? 

Honestly…

Well, regardless. Madara has his ceasefire. He’s happy.

It’s only good for six months, which, frankly, he’d been expecting. It’s a good thing this happened in fall, he’s not sure how much they’d have gotten if this were spring.

One step closer… those honey-sweet promises are so close he can practically taste them on his lips. To think, after all this time—!

A cane smacking the back of his knee sends him stumbling, neatly interrupting his thoughts. He shoots a glare at the old bastard. “Really?”

“Quit your brooding, we’ve got work to do!” The elder snaps. “Fortifications to make, alliances to cement. Do you even have a solid idea of what to bring to the negotiation table? You can’t just _wing_ peace talks!” 

He sounds so scandalized by the notion Madara involuntarily winces.

“I wasn't going to?” Madara tries, not sure why this was all coming down on him _now._ He literally just secured a ceasefire, can’t he take five minutes to bask? “Stop snickering, Izuna!”

“Make me,” Izuna said, shit eating grin firmly in place. Madara makes a face at him.

“Children,” the old man said dryly, “don’t make me roll my eyes at you.”

Madara discreetly rolled his own behind closed lids. “Alright, what’s so urgent that’s got you chomping at the bit, old man?”

Elder Madara sniffed. “Cheeky brat. If I weren’t here you’d be waiting for obstacles to come to you to do something about them. You’ve got to be proactive! Don’t just assume the clan has a lot to offer a truce — though we do — we have to be better than that! We have to secure our position, our resources, our alliances. The more we bring to the table, the better off we’ll be in the long run. Now, I know you have a brain under all that hair so put it to good use, and think!”

And Madara thought. 

After a moment he pulled a scroll closer, and started jotting down all he knew of the clans resources, what they had in abundance, and what they lacked. Not even a quarter of the way, Izuna bent over his shoulder to add additional things to the list, records at his elbow. His elder namesake favored them with a smile. Laid out on paper like this made it easier to conceptualize things. Made it simpler to point and say this or that wasn’t as productive as it could be. It was something to work on.

It was nice, like this. Having Izuna by his side on this. Maybe there’d still be some awkwardness about the peace thing for a while yet, but it was nice. 

If anything, Madara felt a bit guilty, that he somehow missed how much of Izuna’s objections were based on fear, rather than simply hate. That Izuna needed not logic, but _security._

Madara wondered what else he missed.

“You don’t have any plans for the Hagoromo?” The old man asked, curiously neutral.

“Ah, no.” Madara exchanged a glance with his brother, who just shrugged back. “I— was thinking of letting them go, actually. They’ve become little more than mad dogs, and I fear they’re going to start lashing out at us sooner or later. Not exactly trustworthy in an ally.”

The old man scowled. Madara inwardly winced.

“Mad dogs?” The elder thumped his cane on the floor, declaring “I don’t remember them being— Oh, but it’s been ages… This bears investigating! Come along!”

“What?” Madara and Izuna chorused.

“Come along or float along, your pick!” 

They picked not floating, thank you very much. It was disconcerting as hell. 

The old man hobbled right up to the gates before he paused, scowling, turning to them, “Where the hell do the Hagoromo live again? And don’t say anything,” he added warningly. “It’s been decades for me, okay.”

Madara obligingly pointed in the right direction and they were off.

The first group of shinobi they ran into outside Uchiha territory, Madara thought they’d have a fight on their hands. But his elderly namesake just floated them flailing up and overhead while they moved on. Madara wasn’t sure if it was wisdom or fear that kept them from picking up any pursuers for that little trick.

Izuna snickered. “Oh man, did you see their faces?”

“Yeah, it looked a lot like yours did,” Madara said dryly, dodging the swat Izuna aimed at him with a laugh.

Truth be told, Madara rarely makes the trip out to visit the Hagoromo on their own lands if he can help it. Something about the barely leashed aggression just didn’t sit right, like walking amongst hyenas who hadn’t decided whether you’d be fun to take a chunk out of yet. Plus, he’s pretty sure they spike his drinking water no matter what they say otherwise. 

He’s really, _really_ sure.

In a trend Madara suspects is about to become commonplace in his life, the first Hagoromo they encounter are summarily floated on sight and towed along with. It was a little awkward trying to tune out the vile language being thrown their way for it. Madara takes a deep breath and tries to hold his temper, reminded himself that he’s here for a purpose no matter how ambiguous it presently is.

Izuna whistled lowly at one particularly inventive invective involving their great-grandmother, a flute, a grinding stone, and giant ground sloth. 

Madara did not need those mental images, thank you very much. Even his namesake looked back at that. Then again, there’s a good chance he might’ve known the woman— and Madara was stopping that train of thought there for his own sanity’s sake.

He may nurse a quiet suspicion he was named after the wrinkly bastard but he didn’t exactly want to think too hard on it.

By the time they got to the actual compound, his elderly namesake had acquired a veritable asteroid belt of cursing, flailing, ruffled Hagoromo. It was, Madara freely admits, an impressive display of power. And nearly as disconcerting as how run down the Hagoromo compound had become since Madara had seen it last. When was it, two— two and a half years ago? By the looks of it they must have simply just— stopped doing any domestic maintenance. 

Madara found it… worrisome.

The old man doesn’t even bat an eye when Hagoromo Saichirou, the clan head, tried to charge them at the gates; just produced a black rod of sorts from his palm, which, uh, _that was new,_ and drove it through the man’s chest, leaving him lying on the ground twitching weakly. Madara exchanged an alarmed look with Izuna. Seriously, he really needs to get the old man to give him a run down on what freaky abilities his special eyes gave him. This was getting ridiculous!

“Is he… going to be okay?” Izuna tentatively asked, hand inching towards his sword as Saichirou’s limbs spasmed trying to move. Madara didn’t see any blood, but still...

“He’ll be fine, he’s just paralyzed,” the old man scoffed, planting himself right inside the gates for all the gathering Hagoromo to see. “Alright, listen up!” The old man bellowed with surprising strength. “You are all a disgrace to your name, and at this rate you’re all going to die like savages!”

 _Holy shit,_ Madara dived to grab his _clearly senile_ namesake to shunshin him out of there. Madara was a titan in battle when he felt like it, and Izuna was his equal in all ways, but even they would have difficulty with taking on an entire clan of battle-mad Hagoromo by themselves.

Perhaps predictably, that does not go to plan.

Elder Madara responds to the enraged Hagoromo in classic fashion by throwing every single one he’d already managed to collect at them.

“Feh, stabbing fish in a barrel,” the old man spat, throwing his shoulders back and planting his fists on his hips.

 _Is this what other people feel when I do this?_ Madara wondered half hysterically. 

“They’re too slow,” Izuna muttered, suddenly tugging at Madara’s sleeve. “Aniki, they’re too _slow._ ”

Madara gave the Hagoromo a second once over, brows rising then lowering into a furrow. The Hagoromo were indeed slow to recover from being tossed down. Several had difficulty uncurling, hands gripping their bellies. Even the ones they found patrolling were unsteady on their feet, though that he was willing pin on experiencing no gravity. “It’s— like they’re sick,” Madara said, surprised. “All of them.”

The old man made a derisive noise and knocked them all off their feet.

“Odd, isn’t it?” Izuna mused. “Even the ones we captured were kind of… they didn’t try to use jutsu. Despite being in range. Not a single one of them tried to escape with chakra.”

His elderly namesake grunted, irritated, and stalked over to prod at Saichirou under the disbelieving and furious but impotent glares of his clansmen.

“One of these receivers shouldn’t have been enough to put him down so thoroughly,” he grumbled, checking eyes, and pulse, the inside of Saichirou’s mouth, and finally lighting his hands up green. Izuna made a wistful noise at the sight of iryo-jutsu, so valuable. “Either he’s weak, or his chakra’s compromised. And Hagoromo don’t follow weak clan heads.”

Yeah, okay. 

Well, while the old man dealt with that, Madara would do what he did best these days; intercede on the behalf of obnoxious kinsmen and (fail) to soothe ruffled feathers. As usual.

A kunoichi is the first to reach the gate, glaring fit to kill. “What do you want, Uchiha- _sama,_ ” she spat, the respectful honorific anything but.

“Would you believe we’re concerned about the state of your clan?” Madara tried.

The senbon launched at his face says it all.

It was just the one though, so Madara thinks she’s open to listening. Because he ostensibly pretends to have manners he returns the senbon. The kunoichi glances between it and his face like she’s thinking of throwing it again. Madara resigns himself to the possibility. Honestly, half of talking to Hagoromo is being creatively interpretive with all the ways they’ll try to lash out at you for daring to talk at them and interrupt— whatever it is they were mentally engrossed with.

“Look, we _are_ allies _,”_ Madara said firmly. _For now._ “We can’t exactly not notice that you, the Hagoromo clan, are deteriorating for— whatever reason. We could’ve just cut you loose to flap in the wind when it became clear you not only weren’t holding up your end of things, but actively detrimental to us,” _like I wanted to,_ “but we’re not. We are here. Giving you the benefit of the doubt. Trying to see if we can help.”

The kunoichi gave him a long, hard look, brows furrowed fiercely and scowling. Whatever it was she was looking for, she seemed to find it as her face cleared. 

“Here.” She all but shoved the senbon back into Madara’s hands. “Keep it. My name is Hagoromo Chiwako. If you fail I will take it back and drive it through your eye. Remember it, Uchiha-sama.”

“Uh,” Madara said.

Luckily, Izuna whooping in triumph saved him from having to scramble for something diplomatic to say to that bit of pleasantness.

“Sage’s fucking _horns,_ if you had any more metal in your brain it’d count as a helmet!”

“We should… probably go see what that is,” Madara concluded. Anything to get away from this earnest bit of awkwardness.

Hagoromo truly were so violently backwards, Madara would never understand them. He knows for a fact that his father used to greet his contemporary by trying to stab him in the spleen on sight, and the man seemed to have taken it as a gesture of their firm friendship. Their firm… something at least. Madara never could tell what was going on in that man’s head.

“What’s going on?” Madara asked, drawing near.

“What’s going on!?” The old man cried, gesturing incoherently at the increasingly sheepish Hagoromo clan head. “I’ll tell you what’s going on, this is the worst case of heavy metal poisoning I’ve ever seen! I genuinely do not know how he is still alive other than chalking it up to him being too stupid to die.”

“Hey,” Saichirou said.

“Face it, buddy, you had that one coming,” Izuna told him. “What were you doing, drinking mercury with your morning tea?”

“I’m not stupid—”

“Debatable,” Elder Madara interjected.

“I sprinkle cinnabar in the sacred battle draught like everyone else,” Saichirou finished.

Silence falls on their group.

Madara opens his mouth, gives up, and closes it again. Izuna soundlessly mouths ‘ _cinnabar?’_ , helplessly appalled.

Silence falls harder.

“Alright,” Elder Madara said at last, very faint. “Okay. I’m conflicted. Help me out here, Mini Me, Minier Brat, I need a second and third opinion because I genuinely do not know how to take this. At what point do you just let idiots die?”

“Hey,” Saichirou said again.

“I second that hey,” Izuna scowled.

“You’re the one who answered to Minier Brat,” Madara pointed out. Izuna punched him for his troubles. “Ow,” he said flatly, rubbing the smarting shoulder.

“ _Ahem,_ ” Madara the Elder interjected. “Don’t ignore me.”

“Sorry, Elder,” Madara and Izuna chorused.


End file.
